Gus Bilirakis: “I thank Chairman Deal, and I do rise in support of this bill which I have cosponsored with Chairman Deal and with our…”

“I thank Chairman Deal, and I do rise in support of this bill which I have cosponsored with Chairman Deal and with our colleague from Texas (Mr. Gene Green). I have long championed community health centers, Mr. Speaker, because they have been a model for delivering primary and preventive care efficiently and effectively for more than four decades. They serve more than 16 million Americans, many of whom are underinsured or uninsured, in areas where people need most services. They make their services available to all residents of the communities in which they are located without regard to their ability to pay. One of the reasons community health centers have successfully provided care to so many through the years is that the individual centers are governed by a community board, a majority of whose members are patients of the health center itself. I think this feature makes health centers more responsive to the needs of the communities they serve than they otherwise might be. Health centers have proven that health care need not be complicated or expensive to work well. The health centers program started more than 40 years ago with the idea that patients should run the show, a remarkably simple formula for success. This patient democracy, if you will, shapes the delivery of health care to the community and determines the range of affordable services the health center will provide. And those services are certainly needed.…”